SMU Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center partnership
CLICK HERE TO VIEW FULL ARTICLE
Here is an excerpt:
Better information, reduced jail time before criminal charges are filed should reduce impact on families’ health, housing, stability.
A new partnership between SMU Dedman School of Law’s Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center and the Child Poverty Action Lab (CPAL) aims to improve outcomes for families across North Texas by helping Dallas County prosecutors, judges, and defense attorneys make informed decisions – faster – about whether to file criminal charges against individuals.
After a person is arrested, their case cannot be resolved until a prosecutor decides whether to file formal charges. In Texas, prosecutors can take up to 180 days to make that decision, and an arrested person can be held in jail for half of that time.
“Any time a person is arrested and jailed, the stakes are high for prosecutors making charging decisions,” said Professor Pamela Metzger, Director of the Deason Center. “Hasty decision-making can lead to unfair or even dangerous results. But delays in the decision can be equally problematic. These delays often lead to worse case outcomes, uncounseled guilty pleas, and unnecessary detentions where people spend weeks in jail only to have prosecutors decline charges against them.”
Because pretrial detention can jeopardize a persons’ employment, family stability, housing, and health, charging delays are a major issue for families across Dallas County. Parents detained in Dallas County jails are separated from their children for more than a month, on average. The Deason Center and CPAL have a shared interest in finding strategies to reduce these family separations, and this long-term partnership will allow the two organizations to share resources and expertise to improve the criminal legal process in Dallas County.
View more
An Underutilized Housing Affordability Tool: Homestead Exemptions
CPAL examines homestead exemption access in Dallas County — who’s claiming, who isn’t, and how much money eligible homeowners could realize if they claimed this...
- ~57K residential properties in Dallas County may be eligible for the homestead exemption but have not yet claimed it, for an estimated total benefit of ~$310M.
- ~40K properties in low-income and very low-income census tracts in Dallas County may be eligible for the homestead exemption but have not yet claimed it, for an estimated total benefit of ~$200M, or ~$5,000 per household.
- While an estimated 95% of eligible households in high-income census tracts claim their homestead exemption, only 81% of households in very low-income census tracts claim their homestead exemption.
.jpg)
CPAL Launches Mobile Clinic to Enhance Family Planning
In partnership with Parkland Health, CPAL's Trust Her team launches a mobile clinic to enhance family planning services for Dallas College students.
- Partnering with Parkland Health Foundation, Dallas College, and philanthropic partners led by the W.W. Caruth, Jr. Fund at Communities Foundation of Texas, a Trust Her mobile clinic has been launched in North Texas to continue CPAL’s work to improve maternal health by helping ensure women and families have the resources they need to plan for their futures.
- This barrier-free clinic is designed to meet women literally where they are, and to provide same-day access to birth control regardless of ability to pay.
Understanding Housing Choice Voucher Acceptance in North Texas
CPAL surveyed 340 apartment complexes across seven Dallas-Fort Worth counties to measure how often landlords accept Housing Choice Vouchers. Vouchers are a proven anti-poverty tool, but Texas landlords are not required to accept them.
- Only 16.5% of surveyed complexes (56 of 340) reported accepting vouchers, about 1 in 6.
- When measuring the acceptance rate for apartment units instead of complexes, the acceptance rate is lower at 13.4%.
- Acceptance rates vary widely based on income: the most affluent census tracts have the lowest acceptance rates (12.9%), and the poorest census tracts have the highest acceptance rates (34.6%).
- Acceptance rates also vary widely based on race and ethnicity: 33.9% of properties in majority Black and Hispanic census tracts reported accepting HCVs, while only 10.4% in majority White census tracts reported accepting HCVs.